Get Schooled

By HSTeach

December 7, 2005 11:50 AM | Link to this

this affects high schools as well!! there is a huge disconnect (maybe 5th grade?) where school becomes unimportant compared to the things that surround the kids….seriously, how are “we”, as teachers, supposed to compete w/ XBOX 360, iPods, cell phones, when most kids (regardless of race, class, or sex) can’t identify w/ education at even the basest of levels…..trying to tie $$ to education has failed miserably, b/c the kids know there are more ways to make $$ than go to college….i like the idea of getting them reading, even if it is trash…but it’s how you make them analyze what they are reading..they won’t “like” having to read the magazines for understanding, or for some constructive purpose, b/c it takes the levity of the situational writing completely out of context. So once again, you distance yourself from the kids while trying to get them involved in their own education….they won’t do it if they don’t want to, no matter what DVD it comes on, what color you paint it, or how much you dance!!! the basic philosophy of education has died, people! not many people teach or learn for the sake of learning, or to be a better person or to help people be better people, everyone has to ask “what will I get out of it” or “what kinds of tangible goods will education GIVE ME NOW?!?” If education can’t give it to them when they want it, how they want it, they just DON’T want it….

By Robert

December 7, 2005 12:35 PM | Link to this

IMHO, teachers and educators should not even attempt to compete. If students (and parents) want to spend their lives playing XBox, then let them…. then they will see how much those skills will get them a job.

This problem is really one of delayed vs. instant gratification. Our society has moved so much toward instant gratification, no one looks to the future - well, it isn’t “no one” because some students do study and get their education and have goals and aspirations of going to a good college and becoming something like a doctor, etc. It is the parents job to either dictate to their children the right choices or to teach them to make their own right choices in life. Education/teachers cannot make their choices for them.

The students chose to do their homework or they chose not to do their homework (with the parents blessing). And, that homework grade affects their class average. And, the class average affects their high school gpa. And, their high school gpa affects their college acceptance. And, their college acceptance affects their career choice. And, their career choice affects their ability to earn an income/living. See how it works?

Schools and techers becomes mucked when we try to make them something they are not….. parents.

By jim dumond

December 7, 2005 12:44 PM | Link to this

One might ask if it really matters what they are reading as long as they are reading. On the other hand one might ask what they are learning from reading this material. It may become interesting to see the test on some of these materials especially the articles providing tips on how to make out better or how to flirt with the boy next door.

This has to be one of the most asinine experiments I’ve seen to date in education.

Well maybe second only to NCLB.

By jim dumond

December 7, 2005 12:53 PM | Link to this

Teach middle-schoolers how to stir up those old hormones, teach abstinence only sex ed and watch all the dumb kids getting knocked up drop out of school.

What a great concept for improving test scores. One must tip their hat to the innovative thinking of the Baltimore School system.

NOT!!

By mel

December 7, 2005 01:26 PM | Link to this

I could see this as working if it were handled on an individual level. A student is having a hard time reading/won’t read then find out what s/he wants to read and enlighten him/her to what reading can do for him or her- whether that is Sports Illustrated, People, Teen People or the National Enquirer. But, it should just be used as a door opener! I can’t imagine sitting in class reading the latest copy of People and discussing it with my classmates!

And the new definition of Nouns? Huh?

By Amazed (Independent Woman)

December 7, 2005 01:27 PM | Link to this

Are you kidding Jim,

Their hormones are stirred without any help from the school system. So, unless you are going to eliminate television, radio and the internet - that school system can’t do anymore damage.

I don’t like the magazines they are using, but if the editors of Teen People and CosmoGirl are willing to work with the school systems to help publish more useful articles and introduce more educational material, it could work out.

By RF

December 7, 2005 01:32 PM | Link to this

Folks, good teachers have been doing this kind of thing for a long time to get kids interested and make connections in their brains. Use the easy terms/material to get them in and interested, then you introduce the technical term. If that’s the purpose of this kind of program, it fits what we’ve been doing for a long time anyway. If the new term is the only term taught, then I don’t support it one bit. I teach struggling readers, so I have to connect to something they can grasp before I hit them with a technical term they need to know. It works well if done correctly.

By Dan

December 7, 2005 02:11 PM | Link to this

Here is an appropriate joke granted it is a bit of an exageration but probably closer to the truth than many think given this studio course Math in 2005

Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $3.58. The counter girl took my $4.00 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.

Here is a synopsis of the evolution of teaching math since 1950:

Teaching Math In 1950

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005

Un maderero vende un camion de madera de construccion para $100.
Su coste de produccion es $80. Cuantas tortillas puede el comprar?

By V for Vendetta

December 7, 2005 02:27 PM | Link to this

As an English teacher, I understand the difficulties surrounding the reading material we teach in high school. Perhaps there is some common ground between teaching pop culture pap like Teen Cosmo, and teaching mind-numbingly dull stories like Great Expectations. We should not be afraid to embrace pop culture and use it to our advantage, but we should be selective about what we choose to use. It would be thrilling to see the schools embrace novels like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Harry Potter books. Unfortunately, because we live in the South, those books would offend the set of people who think that Jesus created the Platypus when he tripped over an otter and a duck. We try so hard to expel every shred of religion and controversey from our schools, but then we just turn around and give in to people wanting to put stamps in science books or people who find “Merry Christmas” offensive. Until we grow a pair, and start choosing an educational path that puts the needs of the students above the needs of the wackos, we will always be the laughing stock of the nation. We need to do everything we can to preserve English before it disappears all together. Comprende?

By oldteacher

December 7, 2005 02:36 PM | Link to this

Dan, What a wonderful response.

By jim dumond

December 7, 2005 02:53 PM | Link to this

Why noy Playboy?

There are some great articles.

By RF

December 7, 2005 03:00 PM | Link to this

Dan- estas muy comico, senor!!

By RF

December 7, 2005 03:02 PM | Link to this

Jim- really?? I never noticed… :- )

By DB

December 7, 2005 03:30 PM | Link to this

Great joke! The sad part is that it’s so true.

By An Ex-Teacher

December 7, 2005 03:36 PM | Link to this

I’ve said this previously in this space, but I will repeat myself. Last year when I returned to classroom teaching after a number of years away, one of the many things that were a shock to me was the realization that none of the ninth through eleventh grade students I taught ever (notice that word - ever) read books! It didn’t matter if they were good, poor, or indifferent students. Not a single one read books for leisure reading; they only read magazines and/or comics. My students truly belierved that my job was to prepare them for tests they had to take to graduate from high school or move from grade to grade. They did not buy into learning how to learn; they did not buy into learning in order to become part of a greater society of literate people.

A few students had some joy in writing, but only to the extent that the first thing they wrote down was perfection. A few students enjoyed reading, if it wasn’t too long and about cars or movie stars. Most students enjoyed film, if it meant they didn’t have to read the text! It just took that one year back in a high school classroom to know I was in the wrong place. I was demoralized and broken in spirit by their implacable attitudes. I truly felt I was the only teacher these students had who was trying to require anything of substance of them, and they fought me tooth and nail every day. I knew I wasn’t going to change or lower my expectations. That’s why I’m not in a high school classroom this year and never will return.

I’m sorry, but I feel the Baltimore schools have lowered expectations. By the time students have reached middle school, they have heard that a noun is a person, place, or thing ad infinitum. Now, they will be told a noun is stuff! Do they honestly think students will not notice the material has been “dumbed down”. If I were a middle school student in Baltimore, I would assume that I am dumb and not likely to succeed in life; therefore, why should I try in school. Indeed, why should I even go to school?

By SET

December 7, 2005 03:39 PM | Link to this

There was an old movie from the early ’70s (blaxploitation period) called “Halls of Anger” about what happens when you bus white students to a black ghetto school. It was hilarious (a drama, actually - the premise was hilarious).

First day of class everybody is made read aloud in a (11th grade?) classroom. The black kids can’t read and the white kids are reading aloud like the 5 o’clock news report.

The concerned teacher eventually starts up a “special” reading class for the black students using soft porn stories as books - read aloud. By the end of the movie the black kids are catching up.

The audience found this to be hilarious - they laughed out loud. Don’t think this movie ever made it to TV. Not politically correct at all - all kinds of non PC things happened throughout the movie and the kids never did get along. I think the white kids eventually all got beat up or sexually assaulted and quit for private schools. Basically it was a black payback movie - kind of like Shaft and Coffy, etc. Probably an American International production.

So the concept of deviating from Dick and Jane readers and standard textbooks in order to appease and interest ghetto dwellers is not new.

I suppose whatever works… I want adolescents to all learn to read and write to the extent their IQ permits it. I’d have problems with the soft porn paperbacks being used but I can’t have everything in this world my way.

I’ve said this before… In the 1940’s to the 1970’s the Catholic Church set up grade schools across the US including the black ghettos that took in anyone including non-catholics who wanted an education. They taught using Irish and Italian nuns (who worked for very little) and educated their charges so that they could transfer into the public high schools ahead of the masses academically. I am a product of this system and so are my much older relatives.

The nuns didn’t care what color or religion you were. You would learn what they were teaching, and good hand writing, or they’d make your life a living hell (which I think they enjoyed). I never saw them give up on anyone, male or female, black or white or brown.

But unlike the government schools the Nuns didn’t worry about our self esteem, hurting feelings (of students or parents) or physically getting anybody’s attention - or hitting people (with money) up for their financial needs like field trip financing.

They did tend to stick to generally accepted textbooks.

Anybody see the new Harry Potter movie’s classroom scenes? See what happens to kids not paying attention or talking in class? When I saw this movie recently I was downright nostalgic for my grade school days. Part of the fun in 3rd to 8th grade was NOT GETTING CAUGHT in class when you passed notes or whispered.

These kids today will never know how much they are missing unless they see it in a movie.

But will they be able to find and hold a job? The Nuns taught us all to hustle. It was an unintended consequence of the toughlove. The High School Grads I encounter can’t hustle. They act like they need guide dogs. Sometimes their mothers fill out their job applications. The kids never learned handwriting or other basic skills because they never had to.

By Beverly

December 7, 2005 03:45 PM | Link to this

My native language is Spanish, so I was a little offended by your comments Dan (okay, it IS funny). Anywho, American kids need to learn proper English. Pop culture is trash and pretty useless for teaching grammar or appreciation for literature. We can do better than this as a country. I appreciate all the opportunities that I’ve had since coming here more than 30 years ago. But what I appreciate the most is the rigorous New York City education I received from teachers who didn’t play…they meant business. I don’t understand all this catering to kids to make them more comfortable in the classroom. I tell my daughter, “school is your job. That’s why it’s called work and not easy. So get to work!”

By Swangirl

December 7, 2005 04:22 PM | Link to this

This is sad but it’s not a surprise to me, having had a little interaction with the Maryland Dept. of Education. Their scores are so bad they’re throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem to fix it. With poor results.

Purchasing an expensive barely-tested curriculum to revive a struggling school system is nothing new. It happens in some schools every year. One day a new program is sent down from on high with little to no advanced training and it’s supposed to be the panacea to educational success. It rarely, if ever is. It gets tried for a few weeks, it bombs and it gets discarded until the Next Big Thing gets purchased.

I have no problem with using a teen-oriented article as a tool to spark reading or discussion but you cannot rely on it as the basis for a curriculum.

A noun is stuff. Oi vey…

By currentteacher

December 7, 2005 04:28 PM | Link to this

SET, I really enjoyed your commentary about the Nuns and how they taught you. I am also a product of Catholic school and while I screamed and yelled all through it about hating it, I am now a highly educated former college professor who decided to go into the public school system to be a teacher. I drive by a Catholic school every day and I long to pull in and beg for a job. I miss the wonderful way that the Nuns taught. I now see the method to what I once considered their “madness” :) Ah, the memories of a time when teachers were respected and students learned more than just “stuff”.

By RetiredTeacher

December 7, 2005 04:35 PM | Link to this

I cannot remember where it was but I remember a story about a prison where the teachers did in fact use Playboy to teach reading. If the inmates mastered reading an article they were allowed to look at a picture. I guess it is all in finding the right incentive. LOL But on a serious note, the problem I found when I was teaching reading was the mind-numbingly boring “basal readers.” I was on a textbook committee and tried unsuccessfully to get them to adopt a literature book for the middle school where I was then working instead of a basal reader. I laughed out loud when the curriculum director told me that we could not do that because many teachers would not be able to teach from a literature book since it did not contain the mind-numbingly boring selections and activities one finds in a basal reader. My solution was quite simple. I had my students take out the readers now and then and thumb through them to make them look used in case anyone ever checked on me and then I proceed to use literature instead. I had my students reading Shakespeare and loving it. We read many classics including even some that have been banned in many areas: Adeventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, etc. When I shut my classroom door I always did what I thought was right and let the chips fall where they may. I took early retirement because I could not stand to see the direction teaching was going. When teachers started calling misbehaving “acting out” and referring to their own classes as “Mrs. Brown’s class needs to be in a straight line” I knew it was time to hang it up.

By Parent

December 7, 2005 04:42 PM | Link to this

Why should students read books, when all they have to do is know the author and title of a book to pass a test? Teach them comprehension skills in elementary school and they will read. Teach them only to memorize and you’ll be lucky if they can even read a magazine.

More on the topic … using magazines to assist those with reading difficulties is acceptable. Also, using pop culture as a set up to a more educational topic is a good tool as well. However, educating the masses this way is just plain dumb.

By RetiredTeacher

December 7, 2005 04:43 PM | Link to this

Part of the problem is that so many parents object to so many things that what can be used in reading classes is so bland and boring that it is no wonder reaching students is so hard these days. I think we fall into the trap of that old saying that parents want their kids to have it better than they did is a fallacy. I do not believe it for a minute in most cases. From my experience most parents want their kids to be little clones of themselves, doing and believing everything just as they do. Reading anything that is different from a parent’s narrow view is a no-no. When you take out every possible subject that might be objectionable you are left with only the most generic and boring tripe. Why would any kid be interested in reading that?

By RetiredTeacher

December 7, 2005 04:49 PM | Link to this

One of my pet peeves was always Accelerated Reader (AR for those who have been bombarded with it). This is truly one of the biggest boondoggles to hit Georgia schools in years. Rewarding students for doing what they are supposed to be doing is another pet peeve. Several studies have shown that AR schools and non-AR schools show no difference in reading abilities but Georgia just keep on eating it up. Just for fun, I took several tests myself on books I had never read nor even heard of and passed them all. Hee Hee I was listening to a local radio station one morning that had a student of the month recognition program going at the time. They had the mother on the air and asked her what had made her daughter (that month’s winner) deserve the award. The mother replied with great pride that her child had been “selected” to participate in the AR program. Since in most schools everyone participates I found that comment to be sad and hilarious at the same time. I nearly ran my car into a ditch laughing.

By 2teach

December 7, 2005 04:57 PM | Link to this

Moral issue of the articles aside for a moment, I can understand trying to search to find something that will interest the students; however, you’re not going to convince me that the articles in these teen magazines offer the level of difficulty needed.
Wait a min… can you hear that…

It’s the sound curriculum being watered!

By Karen Armsby

December 8, 2005 08:20 AM | Link to this

I have tutored illiterate adults and I would ask them what they wanted to be able to read, and ask them to bring it in to our lessons. The interests were wide, some practical and work related, some spiritual, and many hobby related. People wanted to be able to read their Bible, Sports Illustrated, cookbooks, TV Guide, and one guy even brought in his fighting rooster club magazine. (YIKES!)

IMHO the best way to develop good readers is to get them hooked reading something they are interested in. This works for little kids, teenagers, or adults.

Sadly there are many poor readers in high school. If teachers use the popular magazines and reading materials that the poor readers are interested in, and they start reading more, then they will also become better learners in their other subjects, too.

Use the alternative materials to get them reading, but then transition to the traditional reading materials and teach the proper names for parts of speech, not shorthand slang “stuff.”

By Becky

December 8, 2005 08:26 AM | Link to this

I too think that we have overdone the AR thing in Georgia schools. I also beg to differ with the parent who implies that we are not teaching reading comprehension in school. That is a large part of the CRCT so it is cover nicely here where I teach.

By jim dumond

December 8, 2005 08:38 AM | Link to this

If the only thing we can get kids interested in reading is sexual in nature, Do you think we might have problems other than they’re not reading?

By HSTeach

December 8, 2005 09:47 AM | Link to this

speaking of reading in class, have any of you out there read any of the “Zane” novels? I guess you can call them novels, but they are more or less an ethnic version of harlequin romance novels….w/ a bit more……tasteless language and setting…anyway, i do see kids reading at my school, but many, and I do mean many, are reading this…..what, as a teacher do I do about this?? stop them from reading b/c it’s a question of “taste” or let it slide b/c, “hey, at least they are reading!”

By MMM

December 8, 2005 09:57 AM | Link to this

SET and Current Teacher: So wonderful to hear your positive comments about the nuns! Two of them remain very active in our charter school. Sister Patty is an Irish Catholic from Chicago that worked in a segregated (all black) private high school in Alabama in the 50’s and 60’s. With no money in that environment, that single school produce a huge number of the blacks now in leadership in Washington today. It was really weird to have John Lewis come to speak to the kids and have Patty rattle off the names of some of the kids she taugh—(he went through her school) and then have this Powerful Black congressman start treating this 80 year old nun with the utmost affection and respect.

By OldSchool

December 8, 2005 11:40 AM | Link to this

I teach Engineering Drawing on a block schedule. I have my students read silently for the first 15 minutes of each block. They can read academic assignments or my assignments (no writing or math, reading only.) The most popular reading material for these high school students is my collection of Patrick McManus books…a favorite story is “My First Deer and Welcome To It.” These short stories are funny, well written and contain no objectionable words or concepts. While they read, I get the roll checked and finish any other “stuff” I need to do, but more often I read along with them.

Class starts off on a very calm, positive note and everyone is usually in a good mood. The students really enjoy the reading time.

I might add that for 25 plus years I have had classical music playing softly in the background. I have fewer discipline problems, quieter classes, and many students have come to recognize some of the music they hear by title and composer. They complain about it at first but complain louder if there is no background music.

By Nel

December 8, 2005 12:00 PM | Link to this

Whatever happened to every student in the class reading an assigned book, doing a required essay (book report sound so childish), then everyone discussing said book in class allowing EVERYONE to express THEIR opinion, good, bad or indifferent. It seems that so little is expected of kids today so things get dumbed down. It’s fascinating to hear the different perspectives and exchange of ideas that occurs. The one thing to remember is that almost everyone sees things differently, but that’s how you start a dialogue and get them thinking.

By SET

December 8, 2005 12:38 PM | Link to this

The reference to respect and affection did remind me of the scene in the Movie “The Blues Brothers” where the brothers go back to the orphanage and run into Mother Superior.

Psychologically no matter how old those Nuns get there will always be a ruler handy.

I can’t imagine any product of their education not watching their Ps and Qs around them even in a nursing home.

By the way, one of the better Nun stories was the Convent station wagon doing 50 MPH in the city streets around town and the local cops - who were all Irish and products of the Catholic Elementary Schools - absolutely refusing to pull them over.

Nobody in the 60’s ever got the better of a Nun. Sane people didn’t try.

And they did drive cars like a bat out of hell.

By V for Vendetta

December 8, 2005 12:46 PM | Link to this

As I said before, if there is anything the Harry Potter explosion has taught us, it’s that children will still read on their own with no provocation from adults. Everyone is so busy complaining about what kids WONT read, they take very little time to look at what they WILL read. They focus on the negatives (Teen People, Cosmo, Seventeen) and ignore the positives (Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, The Lord of the Rings). What about New York Times best-sellers? I bet I could get a group of my high schoolers into Jurassic Park or A Time To Kill a lot easier than I could teach them Great Expectations. Wouldnt that be fantastic? Kids reading long, involved novels about complicated subjects complete with plot twists to stimulate the brain! Imagine that.

By MMM

December 8, 2005 01:30 PM | Link to this

SET—I like your nun story, but our founder Nun has a wonderfully generous spirit with the parents and children AS LONG AS they are trying. The faculty and staff of all faiths respect her moral direction. She says she can’t believe some of the things that the nuns did when they were younger.

However, they did just recently build another fence down at the “School of the America’s” at fort Bragg to protect the US army from her “ruler”. She was working in South America when those priests were murdered.

By Peggy

December 9, 2005 09:16 AM | Link to this

Stuff? Oh, please! Even as we struggle to get students to use more concrete detail we cloud the issue with empty vocabulary? I think it’s insulting to think students can’t understand so simple a concept as a noun or a verb.